Amazon Customers Sign Letter To Jeff Bezos To Dump Donald Trump (thestreet.com)

An anonymous reader writes: More than 13,000 Amazon customers (including upwards of 5,000 Amazon Prime subscribers), have signed a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos calling for the company to stop selling Trump's line of menswear. UltraViolet Action is the organization hosting the petition, which calls for Amazon to "stop profiting off of [Trump's] brand of hate." The letter reads: "Donald Trump has consistently lobbed racist, sexist, and xenophobic attacks against entire groups of people, encouraged violence and vitriol against his political enemies and perpetuated a culture of violence against women. Amazon.com should want to distance themselves from this hateful rhetoric, but instead, they're profiting off his brand," explained Karin Roland, Chief Campaigns Officer at UltraViolet, in a statement. "Jeff Bezos needs to listen to his customers and ensure that Amazon doesn't profit off of Trump hate, and take immediate steps to dump Trump." If Amazon does take action, they wouldn't be the first. Macy's stopped carrying Trump's products last summer, and Univision and NBC cut ties with Trump over his statements as well.

Comments

Valid Action

[Anonymous Coward]

Petitions are always just samples of the real objection, so this shows a sizable segment of the customer base objects to Trump's posturing.

It is a simple request to stop funding it by selling his merchandise, which Amazon must decide with weight on its PR impact now too.

Personally if Amazon drops Trump, I will make a point to buy more from them, even at a modest price increase per item.

Re:Valid Action

[rmdingler]

I'm a legacy Amazon Prime subscriber, and I have a hard time not being embarrassed Trump is still in the race, but I don't demand that my top purveyor of goods stop selling his.

There is something dark in that request that resembles a thing that I was for blowing up later in my face.

Re:Valid Action

[SylvesterTheCat]

Why must I be tolerant of intolerance? If Trump wants to ban Mexicans and Muslims, why am I not allowed to try to ban every trace of Trump?

Expressing the desire to do something (ban Mexicans and Muslims, in this example) is not the same as doing it.

The issue is not tolerance of intolerance. It is tolerance of other people's ideas and beliefs, whether or not you agree with them. Tolerance is, by definition, the willingness to allow (not necessarily accept) ideas which are contrary to your own. Acceptance of ideas which are similar to one's own is not tolerance; it is agreement.

You may certainly "ban every trace of Trump" within spaces you own or control. Attempting to do the same anywhere else (especially in my space), is simply an attempt to exert control over others and -that- is an act of intolerance.

It's probably pretty safe to say that you will not vote for Trump, assuming you are a US citizen. That's fine. I cannot see myself voting for him either, however, for different reasons.

If you do not find that argument compelling, let me try another one. Let him talk. If you are right and his ideas are so repugnant, then those ideas will simply die in the open air. To quote a well-know political commentator, "Sunlight kills bacteria."

Re:Valid Action

[AK Marc]

He doesn't make money. Most of the stuff he sells isn't even sold by him or his companies, but is licensed. He's selling his likeness, not any products or services. He inherited $150M and turned it into about $100M and claims $10B, but refuses to open his finances the way all the other candidates have. He doesn't want anyone to know he's a loser that was born rich.

Re:Valid Action

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree with your comment - so I see no reason why I shouldn't figure out who your employer is and petition for them to fire you. Live by the liberal intolerance shield and die by it.

The hate

[Anonymous Coward]

The hate seems to becoming from organization hosting the petition, not Donald Trump.

Politics and business do not mix. How many customers would Amazon lose if it played this game?

When the aforementioned Macy's did that, Trump called for a boycott and their stock tumbled.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/262198-trump-calls-for-macys-christmas-boycott

Re:Yes, but no.

[harrkev]

Hate speech? OK. I admit that I am NOT a Trump fan, and I generally try to ignore any news about him (except to skim the headline), but what has he said that is so hateful?

I know that people call him racist, but he has been against "illegal" (which is not a race) and urges caution in terms of Islam (once again, not a race, but a religion that creates more than 90% of terrorists).

Has he said something else that I have missed?

Plus, which types of speech are NOT regulated by the 1st amendment? There is the old "yelling fire in a theater" thing, which does not apply. There is also inciting to violence, but, from what I have read, the majority of violence caused at Trump rallies are caused by protestors. Has Trump ever actaully issued a call for violence? If so, I must have missed it.

Re:Sounds like harassment and intolerance to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Philosopher Karl Popper defined the paradox in 1945 in The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol. 1.

"Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."

He concluded that we are warranted in refusing to tolerate intolerance: "We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant."

Either have democracy or don't

[Karmashock]

If you want freedom of speech, a free exchange of ideas, freedom of association, civic participation in government by the people... then we can do that.

Or if the progressive peasants are just too triggered by contrary opinions they can give up all that and the nobility will take care of them. No need for any more elections. Hereditary nobility for... ever. Hillary's daughter is already being groomed for high office. They very ready to simply accept your offer at ennoblement... right now.

You can all sit in communal buildings every Sunday and chant along from a book of dogma. And everyone can live by the strict new code of political correctness. We can have religious conformity inspectors... they'll probably be blue/pink haired hipsters wearing ceremonial trilby's that will scream in my face about how tolerant they are... You can see it now.

And then we can have government enforced gender equality... but only in jobs women want to do... or often as not... just get the pay and status of doing the job. Because after all, a lot of those jobs are hard, boring, lonely, and really only a bunch of nerds would do them anyway. But its unfair that there aren't equal numbers of women in those fields. Maybe we should just figure out how many women want to do a given job, then say that equal number of men can also do that job. But no more than that even if there is a need for more than that. After all, that would be sexist.

The whole political scene in the US has been fucking retard inception for the last 10 years at least. You want to cite a longer duration... sure. Cite your favorite flavor of ice cream and we'll go with that. But its just so stupid.

Listening to code pink go on and on and on about how bad war is and how we should just bring everyone home... and then when the people they campaigned for start blowing up Libya or whatever... fucking crickets.

Endlessly being told that there's too much money in politics... except when that money happens to be used by progressives... then its fine. Use tax dollars to bribe people to vote for you? No problem. Use tax money to run partisan propaganda campaigns for your faction? No problem. Use billionaire slush funds to advance your position... No problem. But anyone else does even a shadow of the shit that they get away with on a daily fucking basis... clearly the second coming of literal Hitler.

The sophistry on display is so astounding that I can't take anyone seriously anymore on these issues. Too many people are full of shit. No one can claim they're serious with any sincerity because its been outed at bullshit too many times.

Gents, just express yourselves... actually be tolerant... as in... actually... not just tolerant of YOUR OWN stupid opinions whilst naturally being utterly intolerant of any view that contrasts with your own. Because, that's not tolerance.

Re:Any means possible

[phantomfive]

Then they turned the crazy up to 11. Trump is Mussolini, Stalin, Satan, Hitler. The Washington Post said Cthulhu [washingtonpost.com] supports Trump.

I really hope the news media loses a lot of their power this election cycle.